Yes! Your domain is available & How we won ₹ 1,00,000
With the promise I got, the promise that almost everyone got, I registered for this event. The event which came with a lot of free goodies. Not free exactly.
The goodies being a “.co” domain, some $3000 worth of GCP credits, and fancy decorated white t-shirt with the name “Google” written all over it.
Okay, sounds kind of delicious. Really delicious. No, wait for it. There were free food and drinks available too! As in some coke, some more coke. Boom! Some Redbull. The drink that gave me wings 😏.
A lot of snacks. Believe me, a LOT.
“Stop telling me what you got! Tell me about the event already!”
Okay, Okay! Okaaaaaayyyy!
So the event is called Startup Weekend. And this time, it happened to take place in Jaipur. Manipal University Jaipur ❤️
What does a startup weekend promise?
“In just 54 hours, you will experience the highs, lows, fun, and pressure that makeup life at a startup. As you learn how to create a real company, you’ll meet the very best mentors, investors, co-founders, and sponsors who are ready to help you get started.”
Well, let me just throw in some pictures before you strain your eyes with all this black and white stream of characters.
I wanted to explore myself as a software developer and see if I could make something out of my comfort zone. To see if I can make something over a short span of time and that too a thing which has spun out of someone else’s head. Some IDEA guy!
I bought the developer ticket of course.
Pritty frack, bratty wack I end up in the event on Friday, 8th February at around 6 pm.
Ice breaker starts it off with all the participants grouped together working on some random ideas. Really random and really weird.
Gore Warning, my friend worked on something called the “Flash Sutta” 😆
Well, lol!
Around 8 pm we are all sent away to have dinner.
Done and set, we all come back to hear all the pitches.
The business people all come, I mean the students who bought the business ticket. They pitch their ideas one by one and once they are finished they are handed over a big placard on which they write their startup name.
Once everyone was done they hold their placards up and people start talking.
Developers, Designers, and the IDEA guys.
They choose, they filter, they joke around for a while and then again, FILTER.
Small teams are formed. Kicking off the event at around 11 pm.
Two days straight. We spend the time doing research about the market. Making the app. Monetizing it. Covering all the loopholes. The customer study by doing a simple survey using google forms.
“What was your team/startup name?”
So we called it RentIt, changed it to Vrenzy.. yeah I know. It kept changing.
Moving On!
We worked on the presentation, practice our final pitch.
Here is a picture of our team goofing around!
I’m the one with the teeth out! (Just in case you wanted to know)
Well, it’s Sunday and the time has come to give our final presentation. Our name is at last. We have got the last pitch.
Ouch! Tough nut! All this struggle.
We sat through all the presentations, heard some of the best pitches ever. Saw the judges grill the soya sauce out of the participants.
“And welcome team Vrenzy!!!”
We set up our laptop and start. We explain. We drill inside the judge’s brain and tell them why we have the best idea. We pour in some soya sauce meanwhile. Show them the app, tell them about our market research.
Cracked 2–3 jokes to calm the tense situation.
Kaboom! We are done! Judges have a smirk on their faces. I guess they were satisfied. Nice!
Results were to be out in 2 hours.
That’s long!
Long wait shrunk short, we came second. Or as some people call it, first runners up! Haha!
And yeah, got a coupon code.
Now this, this small piece of coupon code, got me a “.co” domain.
Browsed for my “rshrc”, got to see something like the title.
You can check what I used it for here https://rshrc.co/
Nice? Yeah, obviously you did not click on the link! Feel free to do so.
We were given a big ass certificate which had ₹ 1,00,000 written over it.
The best piece of paper I ever held in my hand. Felt big, felt awesome. Not gonna delete the app now!
12% of the startups in startup weekend actually make it to the end.
“Are we gonna make it?”
Stay tuned for that. Until next time! Bye.
